Finding a choose-and-cut Christmas tree farm in the area used to be as simple as jumping in the car and heading into the countryside.

As many as seven or eight independent tree farms operated in Fayette County into the late 1990s, easy to find by driving around looking for hand-lettered signs.

Of the three tree growers that still operate in Fayette County, just one is listed in an Internet directory of farms compiled by the folks who should know, the Georgia Christmas Tree Association.

The National Christmas Tree Association lists five tree farms in Fayetteville, but only two of those are operational. A third working farm isn't listed at all. The Georgia Forestry Commission has stopped keeping any list.

Christmas Forest, Fayette's oldest cut-your-own tree farm, closed last season. Bulldozers have clear-cut the acreage on Ga. Highway 85 South at Ga. Highway 92, where a new shopping center anchored by Publix will be in business by this time next year.

An early player in the cut-your-own experience and the county's largest tree farm for years was Harp's Farm Market on Hwy. 92 South. It quit growing trees and now concentrates on growing and selling nursery plants.

But Harp's neighbor in Inman, Rick Minter, is hoping to pick up the slack.

"We are planting even more than ever," said Minter, whose farm on Hill's Bridge Road off Hwy. 92 backs up to Harp's acreage.

The change in Christmas tree farms is just another sign of the times, said Sheldon Hammond of the Fayette County Cooperative Extension Service.

"It's just more cyclical than anything else," said Hammond, explaining why society has gone